LAST MINUTE TRAVEL - Tool For Identifying Hotels

Off Topic: Run of House

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Our newest development, RateDrop.com will monitor hotel prices for your specific dates and notify you if the Rate Drops!
Monitor hotel prices from both PRICELINE EXPRESS and HOTWIRE, as well as 'regular' retail hotel rates, based upon the specific criteria you choose.
While the benefits of tracking rates from Priceline and Hotwire are obvious, another use is to purchase a refundable hotel rate using RefundableRates.com and then also set an alert for that specific hotel using RateDrop... if the price drops, simply cancel and re-book at the new lower rate.
Uses your existing BetterBidding.com account so no additional sign-up is needed.
Get started tracking hotel rates now at RateDrop.com

Whatever hotel you're looking at on the LastMinuteTravel.com website, click the link for "more info". When that page comes up, look at the URL address. It will contain the phrase HotelID= followed by a bunch of numbers. Take those bunch of numbers and plug it into the Turico website (link above) in the same place where the numbers following hotelId= is

I spent about 30 minutes using this process and was 100% successful identying any hotel at LastMinuteTravel.com I researched.

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That method is brilliant. Absolutely BRILLIANT. I love it. It seems very close to foolproof, so it's nice to know what you 're getting when you're not supposed to. BUT - just as importantly, you can tell what regular rates for non-opaque purchases would be at the same time. I checked a trip we have coming up and the opaque prices were actually slightly more than the regular prices at the same hotel! Caveat Emptor, everyone. (In case you don't know, that's Latin for buyer beware...)

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That method is brilliant. Absolutely BRILLIANT. I love it. It seems very close to foolproof, so it's nice to know what you 're getting when you're not supposed to. BUT - just as importantly, you can tell what regular rates for non-opaque purchases would be at the same time. I checked a trip we have coming up and the opaque prices were actually slightly more than the regular prices at the same hotel! Caveat Emptor, everyone. (In case you don't know, that's Latin for buyer beware...)

You brought up a good point, Gallus50. I've found pricing on LMT "all over the map". Like you, I've found some of their rates are higher than what you can purchase on a retail basis. Having said that, they were selling the Intercontinantal Miami for $84 on a date in November when the hotel's website was quoting $239. I also found them selling the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park in NYC for $299 while everyone else was quoting $545. I do like that fact they sell high-end 5* properties in many cities, something Priceline and Hotwire rarely does. As always, do your homework!

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Another idiosyncrasy I've discovered with LMT is not all hotels are categorized in the proper area. For example, the Ritz-Carlton Central Park in NYC is listed under "Midtown New York" while LMT has an area of the city described as Central Park. I've seen many other examples of this in not only New York, but other cities as well. So having the ability to unmask the identity of any LMT hotel before purchasing is especially useful in this case so that you don't get stuck in one area of town while LMT leads you to believe the hotel is in another area.

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Thank you so much - this made all the difference for me, and I now have a booking at the W Times Square! I wouldn't have bid on it otherwise, because it's the same price as our backup booking - but because we love the W we were able to decide it was worth it.

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Is this link/process still working? When I paste the number in it brings me to the Tourico home page. Any idea what step I might have missed? I am trying to id a 3 1/2* hotel in Cocoa Beach, 2/19-20. The id # is 1239.

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Is this link/process still working? When I paste the number in it brings me to the Tourico home page. Any idea what step I might have missed? I am trying to id a 3 1/2* hotel in Cocoa Beach, 2/19-20. The id # is 1239.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sheal

The link in the first post of this thread still takes me to the Indian Creek hotel in Miami, where you then replace with the ID of the hotel you're looking for. You cannot ID hotels off the Tourico home page.

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What a great tool! I've been looking at Seoul hotels and found one supposedly a 5* hotel but found out in my Priceline world, the hotel is only a 4 star and way out of the area I was looking for. They also had another apparent 5* hotel, the Hilton Millenium, which I have booked as a back-up (a clear 4* hotel, the last minute travel site even says so in its description, but still lists it as a 5*). The last minute rate was $313/night, and I just have it booked through Hilton as a back-up at $167/night (I'm a Diamond HH member, but still love PL). Thanks for the great tip! Hate to pay more than I can directly book with the hotel.

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I have also found inconsistancies with Easy Click and Last Minute Travel hotel ratings compared with not only Priceline, but sites like Expedia, Travelocity, etc. For example, the New York Marriott Financial District hotel is only rated 3 stars on ECT and LMT, whereas other hotels of similar calibur and amenities will be rated as high as 4.5 stars.

As to location, I've found discrepancies there, too. There is a 5 star hotel with a San Francisco listing that is actually located 25-30 miles south in Half Moon Bay (Ritz-Carlton). Only in the fine print does it mention Half Moon Bay, yet it's clearly labled as San Francisco.

Using the tool through Tourico Travel to identify is a godsend, especially for the rating and location discrepancies.

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Everytime you insert the hotel # in the address & bring up the hotel - there is never availability for that specific hotel. I actually attempted the same dates on both sites - On lastminutetravel.com there was availability & then when checked thru easyclicktravel they had no availability. Odd...

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I just tried this out, the hotel was right. The all seemed right to me, I checked a bunch, I'd say their zones are tad off though.

Going to Vegas next week and I had booked the Westin on Priceline (which is fine, but my party wasn't thrilled with).. but we decided 2 rooms would be better for the 3 of us (the don't even have queen beds there :-/) but man, everything is SO expensive that weekend. I couldn't find a decent hotel anywhere for the $115 we'd paid for the Westin. LMT had it for $69 so I have it on request.. let's see if I get it *crosses fingers* eh worst that can happen is we'll have to suck it up and share. :)